


Yearly Sorting Drabble

by qxzenith



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Hogwarts House Sorting, Gen, Hogwarts House Sorting, The Sorting Hat, sorting every year
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-25
Updated: 2016-09-25
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:21:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23795305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/qxzenith/pseuds/qxzenith
Summary: A few years ago, I wondered how the world of Harry Potter would be different if all students were sorted every year, rather than only in their first. So I wrote this.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 2





	Yearly Sorting Drabble

Little is changed from Harry Potter's first year at Hogwarts. Still he sits under that hat, thinking, _not Slytherin_ ; still the Hat considers his potential before sending him to Gryffindor. Still he is joined in Gryffindor by Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, still the Slytherin he so feared to be in will hold Draco Malfoy. Little is different about the placement of the older students, for all the Sorting Ceremony is made longer, and the Hat’s song a little changed, with their participation. Fred and George Weasley, like their younger brother, are still in Gryffindor. Ambitious Percy Weasley may be in Slytherin by now, maybe not yet, but he is a Prefect regardless. Oliver Wood or someone like him will still be Harry’s first Quidditch Captain.

In Harry’s second year, he and Ron are in more trouble than ever for missing the Sorting Ceremony. Now the Hat must be got out again to Sort these two boys who have caused such a stir, to confirm what surprises no one: both will remain in Gryffindor this year. (This time, Harry is once again thinking his wishes to the Hat, but instead of _not Slytherin_ , he is pleading, _Gryffindor, Gryffindor_ – picturing the warm Gryffindor common room that is the first home he has ever known, the first place that has welcomed him rather than shut him away. The hat, once again, obeys his wishes.) Both boys are relieved to find their House much the same as they left it; Hermione Granger is in their midst again, joined by Ron’s shy little sister Ginny.

Neville Longbottom, who had been plagued throughout his first year in Gryffindor by doubt as to his right to be there, is with them again, too. They missed his silent drama at the Ceremony, too, as the boy sat under the Hat that could see into his mind and reflected on the end of term. He had remembered standing up to the three classmates he thought he could call his friends, only to be left behind – hexed, as he so often was, ridiculed. More proof that he did not belong in the brave House. But he remembered, too, Dumbledore’s voice at the end-of-year feast – praising him for doing what was hard. He remembered being awarded House points for this simple act, and with the meagre sum, winning Gryffindor the House Cup. That heady feeling of being, for just one moment, a celebrated hero – that was like nothing else. That was worth a year and more of self-doubt. So Neville now unpacked his bags in the Gryffindor dormitories again, and, like Harry, he felt for the first time that he was home.

Harry has grown complacent, all his friends staying with him from his first year to his second. He hears the warnings of the older students on his Quidditch team (some of whom go from one House’s team to the next from year to year), the reminders that he will need to make new friends soon, but he does not really believe them. He cannot imagine his world changing even more than it has.

This is why he feels as though his stomach has dropped out of his body, as though he has fallen into some bottomless pit, when things change in his third year. He is still in Gryffindor, yes, and still with Ron, thank goodness for that, but Hermione Granger is no longer of their House. Hermione, who spent the last term of her second year as a statue, whose research was the only part of her that got to be a part of the battle in the Chamber of Secrets, who scrambled and sweated when she was unpetrified to pass all her courses in the remaining days of term – despite the promises of the administration that classes missed by the basilisk’s victims would not be held against their grades. Hermione, who had been called an “insufferable know-it-all” so many times that it had almost stopped hurting, who had felt so frustrated with the cavalier attitude her fellow Gryffindors took to classwork. She was now a Ravenclaw, the blue insignia on her robes matching that of Ginny Weasley, who seemed to have shrunk in on herself after the events of last term. (Ginny, like Harry in his first year, sat under the Hat in her second year thinking _not Slytherin, not Slytherin_ , but then she had paused, and thought, _not Gryffindor_ , too, because Riddle had possessed her despite her red-and-gold robes, and because she did not feel brave.)

Ginny, Hermione, and Luna Lovegood (here is one girl the Hat cannot imagine placing anywhere but Ravenclaw, though it will surprise itself in years to come) soon find each other in the Ravenclaw common room, and form an odd, but tight, bond over the first few weeks of term. Hermione finds that it is nice to have close friends who are girls; she never had this in her two years in Gryffindor. She still finds time to talk to Harry, to help him with an essay in the library or to keep him company on restless Hogsmeade weekends or to walk with him to Hagrid’s hut. They are still friends, and good ones; no disparity of House can change the bond forged in fighting a mountain troll together, and all they have been through together since.

She explains this, at last, to Ron Weasley in the days before Christmas vacation, when the dark looks he has been sending her all term finally come to a head in a shouting match outside the Divination tower. Ron, too quick to view matters in black and white, had seen her Ravenclaw badge as a betrayal, a defection. Had imagined that this was her choice, rather than the honest assessment of the Hat. Had felt left behind, discarded, second-rate, dismissed like his brothers’ hand-me-down robes that he wore. With Harry to remind him not to be an ass, to remind Hermione that Ron was always like this, they made up soon enough. Hermione laughed and called Ron an idiot, but fondly; and he laughed back, and told her that the blue and bronze only made her look more the nerd. The trio were reunited, even if they were in different houses.

And, after that fight at least, perhaps the difference of house was a blessing in disguise. Crookshanks could not worry at Ron’s rat when they lived in different common rooms. There was no fight between Ron and Hermione about their pets; when Scabbers went missing, there was no talk of foul play, only an agreement between the three friends that they would try to find him. The three were still present in the Shrieking Shack, two Gryffindor children and one Ravenclaw, to bear witness to the true identity of Scabbers, to bear witness to the reunion of the three living Marauders. They still saved Buckbeak; they still lost Pettigrew.

Harry’s fourth year at Hogwarts is the year of the Triwizard Tournament. Dumbledore makes the mistake of revealing this before the Sorting, and the emotions it inspires in prospective participants is evident. The Slytherin and Gryffindor tables are top-heavy with students old enough to enter their names, filled with ambition to prove themselves and brash bravery to face the challenges. Cedric Diggory is a Gryffindor this year; Cho Chang is a Slytherin, but this does nothing to disrupt their budding romance. Hermione is a Ravenclaw again, with Luna and Ginny, but this is no longer a source of strife. Neville Longbottom is a Hufflepuff now; it has been a long time since he won the Gryffindor House Cup, a long time since he felt he belonged there, and he is happy to have a Head of House who does not seem disappointed with him all the time. The greenhouses are comfortable, and his housemates accepting.

There is an uproar when the Triwizard Cup spits out a fourth name, that of Harry Potter, but the fallout is not so bad. Draco Malfoy will try to stir up resentment for Harry among the Slytherins, but what is one Gryffindor champion over another? Some Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs join Malfoy’s group, not resentful of Harry but of Gryffindor in general, suspicious that they have somehow plotted to have two champions from their one house. Still, Harry does not feel like a reject. His group of friends has grown, and his cheering section has grown commensurately, to encompass not only Gryffindor but most of Ravenclaw, thanks to Hermione – and Ginny and Luna, who he is surprised to discover are now his friends, too.

He and Cedric do not know each other well, but they are from the same House now, and so they train together. They study together. They share their thoughts and information about each challenge. This will not assuage Harry’s guilt when Cedric dies with him, but he will know Cedric better by then, and he will mourn him like a friend. He will know, at least, that Cedric was brave, and honourable, and would not have let Harry take the Portkey-Cup alone even had he known what it would lead to.

Harry is rattled at the start of his fifth year. He has spent the summer shut up in grim old Grimmauld Place. He has spent the summer doing nothing, being shut out of conversations, resorting to listening at doors as the adults discuss what to do about the most traumatic experience in his life that he can remember. He has spent the summer with long stretches of time in which he cannot help reliving his friend’s death, his enemy’s rebirth. No one outside of that house would believe him that Voldemort was back. No one inside the house would take seriously his commitment to taking action. And he _has_ to take action.

It should not have been surprising, then, that Harry, plagued by dark thoughts and painfully driven to prove himself, is placed in Slytherin at the start of his fifth year. To him, this is the end of the world. To Ron, still in Gryffindor, this is not a big deal; he already learned in his third year that he can have a friend who is in a different house. At least Harry is not alone; Fred and George, already building their joke empire with the small fortune Harry gave him, are Slytherins now, too.

But Fred and George take their new placement, their first year out of Gryffindor, in stride. To them, this is the next big joke: “We’re Slytherins now!” It’s hilarious. Better, they see it as an opportunity. Now is their chance to plumb the depths of Hogwarts dungeons, to see if there are secret passageways only accessible through the Slytherin common room, unknown to the mysterious Marauders of their map. (They do not know this, but: of the four Marauders, two were in Gryffindor throughout their Hogwarts careers. One alternated almost evenly between Gryffindor and Ravenclaw; the fourth, hungry for friends and least prone to solo exploration, was the only one to spend a year or two in Slytherin. They were just as shocked and surprised by his betrayal; this is a different wizarding world, with fewer house prejudices.)

Umbridge’s reign of terror is as bad as ever. Still students gather to learn Defense Against the Dark Arts from Harry, though they are perhaps a little more accustomed to learning with one another, a little further along in disregarding House divisions. One or two students object that Harry is a Slytherin now, but far more stay to benefit from his expertise.

Harry is more confident in his friendships, even if he is in Slytherin; he is more confident in his authority, perhaps _because_ he is in Slytherin. When he has a premonition that Sirius is in trouble, he does not waste time trying to contact his godfather. Instead, he calls an emergency meeting of the DA. Of his closest friends, Fred and George have a distraction all prepared, and Ron, Hermione, Luna, Ginny, and Neville do not even need to be asked to go along. The other members who have gathered all promise to keep roving members of the Inquisitorial Squad busy, and to cover up their fellows’ absence. The battle at the Ministry is much as one would expect, a handful of surprisingly-prepared children facing off against surprisingly-unprepared Death Eaters, reinforced by the Order of the Phoenix, come just in time. The Ministry will still cover up what happened and pretend that Voldemort is not back, in the aftermath of this fight. They will still run a smear campaign against Harry Potter, ambitious Slytherin, clearly hungry for attention. The only difference of any significance to Harry is that Sirius does not die; Sirius does not leave Grimmauld Place or even hear of this fight until a few days after it is over. He will rant and storm and yell his fury that he was not called when his godson was in danger, when his own cousin threatened Harry, but they will make their peace with each other, just as he and James would do after every fight.

What is more interesting, perhaps, is the effect that Dumbledore’s Army has on the start of the new year. Harry is in Slytherin again, Voldemort’s presence in his mind growing stronger; Hermione, the mastermind behind so much of what they accomplished behind Umbridge’s back, is still comfortable in Ravenclaw – but other than these few exceptions, every single one of the loyal students gathered in the Room of Requirement is now in Hufflepuff. Harry can see in Dumbledore’s eyes that he notices, but neither of them speaks of it.

Neither of them speaks much at all, that year. Dumbledore pulls Harry aside at the end of the opening Feast to tell him that he will take Occlumency lessons from his Head of House; Harry turns instinctively to Professor McGonagall before he remembers that his Head of House, this year and last, is of course Professor Snape. Dumbledore and Harry cross paths little after this. Perhaps the Headmaster is wary, now that Harry is in Slytherin. Perhaps he, like the whispers of suspicious students in the halls, sees in dark-haired Harry the Heir of Slytherin, another Tom Riddle.

But Harry being in Slytherin is not entirely new, and it does not bother him. Even Dumbledore’s snub cannot hurt him too much, when he has Sirius to write to with his complaints. There is a different first at this year’s Sorting Ceremony, one that is difficult to ignore: for the first time in his life, Draco Malfoy is not a Slytherin. Bad enough that he butted heads last year with the hated Harry Potter in his very house. But sixth-year Draco Malfoy is a complex boy. He is a boy with a mission that he wants desperately not to complete. Draco Malfoy wants to survive the year, oh yes, and he will do what it takes to achieve that – whatever it takes – but he no longer cherishes ambition of greatness. He can see the way the wind is blowing, and he wants no part of Voldemort’s Death Eaters. The price is too high, the precipice too precarious to stand on. He just wants to live out this year, and the next, and the next, with his mother and father and himself all alive.

He is placed in the ignominious (to his mind) house of Hufflepuff, surrounded by Potter’s chosen. He hates it, except when he doesn’t. He hates the loss of status (still), the fall from greatness (better to fall from here, Slytherin prefect and Inquisitorial Chief, than from higher still). But it is impossible not to be drawn into the common feeling in the Hufflepuff common room, especially for a boy who so cherishes family. It is impossible not to take some solace in the surprisingly friendly people who share his dormitory, especially for a boy who has so many worries to contend with this year.

Easter has come and gone when Draco Malfoy steps into the Room of Requirement to find not the vanishing cabinet he had been repairing, but a partial reunion of the DA, in a room of sympathetic ears. They flinch when they see him, these Hufflepuffs who have been so welcoming to him this year, because old habits die hard, and that simple motion, that reminder of everything he walked away from, is like the snapping twig that breaks a dam. He finds himself opening up to them, Neville Longbottom and Hannah Abbot and Anthony Goldstein, as if they were old friends, as if the Room knew that they were exactly what he needed.

Dumbledore will still die before exams are through, because he knows that he is poisoned, and Snape made him a promise. But he will not die before striking a decisive blow against Death Eaters who think that they are laying an ambush when they are walking into one again. The Order, and the DA, are careful not to blow Draco Malfoy’s cover; his parents still need to survive, and, as Dumbledore and Snape both know, a good double agent is hard to come by. But Draco has friends now, friends he has confided in even if next year’s Sorting moves them around again.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione will not return to Hogwarts for their seventh year. Neville, Luna, and Ginny will lead the rebellion in Hogwarts – Neville in Hufflepuff, where he has always felt most at home, Ginny in Ravenclaw, her devilish wit devising new ways to defy the Carrows every day, Luna tickled by her newest placement in Gryffindor, though no one else is surprised – before going into hiding. Draco Malfoy, relieved to be in Slytherin again, will lead a subtler rebellion, still trying first and foremost to survive but trying, too, to honour the loyalty that brought him into Hufflepuff, and to protect the friends who protected him – all while escaping any hint of suspicion.

When the Battle of Hogwarts comes, there will be no suggestion of separating Slytherin students; there is an understanding that everyone has aspects of each house, and that Slytherin’s ambition is no worse than Ravenclaw’s curiosity. The loyal fighters will put under guard the children of known Death Eaters, subject to approval, once Neville Longbottom vouches for him, by Draco Malfoy. Those Draco trusts will fight alongside the rest, and while many are surprised that Neville trusts the son of Lucius Malfoy this far, no one will gainsay him. History will vindicate them both.

Neville’s Hufflepuff heritage will not prevent him from drawing the Sword of Gryffindor; he has been in both houses, after all, and he is no less brave for being also loyal. Just as Harry Potter is no less brave, ultimately, for being also ambitious; nor is Hermione less brave for being witty and curious.

The war will still be a painful one, with costs still too high. But the wizarding world will heal, and rebuild. Each generation, perhaps, another barrier will break down. Each year of school, another student will find him or herself in another house. And when they graduate and enter the adult wizarding world, they will not be Gryffindors and Slytherins, Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws, hiding their insignias with their plain robes. They will be wizards and witches, graduates of Hogwarts or other schools, brave, loyal, clever, ambitious. They will know each other a little better. They will know themselves a little better.


End file.
